■ We may tick different boxes at the ballot box, but Jamie Vunivesilevu says we can still choose kindness and respect for our neighbours.

My daughter’s birthday is coming up, and every year it does the same thing to me – turns into a quiet audit of what we’re actually trying to teach her and her brother, and what’s landing versus what’s just noise.

There’s a long list, but kindness is the one that always sits near the top.

Not niceness – kindness.

Niceness smiles and says the easy thing that keeps the peace.

Kindness is often the harder, more honest thing, done with care instead of convenience.

It’s also on my mind now because the election’s coming, and elections have a way of putting our differences on full display.

In a few weeks we’ll all walk into the same voting booths here in Ōpōtiki and tick different boxes, for our own reasons, shaped by our own lives – reasons that won’t always make sense to the person next in line.

None of that is abstract here. When someone talks about the weekly shop not stretching far enough, that’s not a talking point, it’s someone many of us will know.

When a farmer or a local business is one hard season from not making it, that’s not “the economy”, it’s a family whose kids might go to school or play sport alongside our own.

Here’s the thing, though: wanting different outcomes for this place doesn’t mean we owe each other any less.

I see plenty of quiet kindness here. Ōpōtiki often makes headlines for the hard stuff, but what’s missing is almost everything else.

Earlier this year it was a local dad running rippa training sessions for a couple of months – not because anyone made him, just because the kids needed somewhere to be and someone to show up for them.

A couple of weeks ago it was Oasis, which hosted a free after-school programme that kept kids of all ages busy and entertained, while parents, aunties, uncles and grandparents ended up staying too.

It’s the same instinct behind our local sports clubs where people volunteer so our kids get to play; the people who pick up rubbish to keep our whenua clean; and dozens of other smaller things in our community nobody writes down.

They might not tick the same boxes in a few weeks, and some might disagree strongly about what’s best for this place.

But it doesn’t stop them turning up for each other’s kids, or staying back to talk to someone they’d otherwise only nod to in the street.

That’s the bit I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for – not that we agree, but that disagreement has never stopped us from showing up.

That doesn’t mean swallowing how you feel. Some of what people are angry about here, they’re right to be angry about.

I don’t think kindness is ever about staying quiet, or letting things go, or pretending the hurt isn’t real.

It’s the harder thing – you can say exactly what you think, argue for it hard, stay angry about the things worth being angry about, and still not take it out on the person in front of you. That’s not a lesser version of standing your ground. It’s a harder one.

That’s the version of kindness I want in the house by the time her birthday’s over: like all siblings, my two kids argue constantly – over whose turn it is, who got the bigger piece, who started it – and most days I find myself saying the same thing.

You’re allowed to be angry.

You’re allowed to disagree, strongly, about things that matter.

What you don’t get to do is treat someone badly because of it.

I’ll be saying some version of that for years yet – she’s only four – but it’s a lesson I think worth repeating until it sticks.